Within the past decade, the telecommunication industry has seen a marked increase in demand not only for globally interconnected telephone services but also for global interconnection for broadband services. In recent years, the industry has seen the first serious consideration of Nongeostationary Orbit (NGSO) satellite constellations using Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and/or Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) satellites and/or some combination of LEO, MEO, and/or Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO) satellites to respond to the rapidly expanding demand for global telecommunication services. These proposed satellite communication systems have the potential to provide world-wide and/or regional coverage at a much lower cost than would be possible using a terrestrial fiber-optic network. Such proposed satellite communication systems also have the potential for providing economical services to virtually any point on the earth, even to remote or sparsely populated areas where it may not be economically feasible to deploy a terrestrial network, through satellite-tosatellite and satellite-to-ground links.
In addition to the various satellite communication systems proposed for use in the telecommunication industry, satellites systems have been proposed for numerous other uses as well, including for example, remote sensing, resource mapping, sale of information from space, and navigation (or global positioning).
Of various satellite systems that have been proposed, some propose to provide world-wide coverage, while others propose to provide regional coverage, or coverage within a particular latitude band. Among these proposed satellite systems, use of satellite constellations designed with both polar and inclined orbits have been proposed.
Such proposed satellite systems generally include large satellite constellations made up of numerous satellites and possibly even as many as several hundred satellites. Manufacturing all of the satellites needed to populate relatively large satellite constellations and launching and deploying all of these satellites into their proper orbital positions to provide a fully populated satellite constellation generally requires a very large capital expenditure and is a very lengthy process. For example, providing a fully populated, fully operational satellite even of less than 100 satellites could require capital expenditure in the billions of dollars and could take years to complete.
In prior art GEO satellite systems, the satellite system operator generally can provide service and begin collecting revenues from providing service to a first market area after deploying as few as one satellite. This is because by nature of their orbit, GEO satellites can provide continuous visibility in a relatively large coverage area with only one GEO satellite. Revenues generated with this first satellite can then be used to provide funding to manufacture, launch and deploy additional GEO satellites to additional market areas.
The dynamics of NGSO satellite systems do not readily allow for derivation of revenues after launching and deploying a single satellite or even several satellites, as providing continuous service from such as system would not be feasible. One option for deriving early revenue, or deriving revenue at a point in time that is earlier than the time when the constellation is expected to be fully populated, would be to employ a rapid deployment campaign. A rapid deployment campaign involves populating the constellation by placing the entire constellation in space via multiple satellite launches where multiple satellites are launched per launch vehicle within a very short time period. This option, however, is very costly and very time and resource intensive.
A phased deployment option for a MEO satellite communication system to provide service in a portion of a potential subscriber population is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,439,190, to Hornstein et al. The system described in this patent and other similar prior art systems employ a phased deployment option where an "original system" which utilizes a "minimum number of satellites" to "reduce the initial capital investment" in an initial phase of deployment. This option requires partially populating each orbit of the proposed constellation with at least one satellite to provide service in a portion of the potential subscriber population. This option also requires that the satellites deployed in the "original" phase be relocated or moved in space during later phases of deployment and certainly before the "fill satellite constellation" is provided. This need to relocate the satellites after they have been deployed is undesirable because it is very costly in terms of fuel requirements, may result in a requirement to adjust the attitude of one or more satellites in space, and almost inevitably results in disruption of service in the service regions where early service is being provided during the relocation process.
Thus what is needed is a method and apparatus for providing early service from a portion of a satellite constellation of a proposed satellite system to enable derivation of revenues before the satellite constellation is fully deployed and operational. What is further needed is a method and apparatus for providing such early service by populating the portion of the satellite constellation in a manner that will not require substantial relocation of the satellites after the satellites have been placed in orbit for providing the early service.